AuthorTopic: Well sh** (Read 2193 times)

I utterly failed my treadmill stress-test a few days ago. I didn't even get to Phase 2 (3 minutes of walking), which is pretty f***ing bad. The doc looked at the sonogram results and told me to "make myself comfortable" because I wasn't going home, I was going into the "next available slot for emergency heart surgery". WTF?

I had 95% arterial blockage in one artery and 75% arterial blockage in the other.

I guess word got around, because a bunch of other heart doctors came in and looked at my charts and they all basically said the same thing to me: "Holy crap, you're having surgery today, right?"

Things sped up after that and they all started running around and yelling sh** and wheeling me around on a gurney like the building was on fire. And before I could say 'boo' I was in the OR, staring at the ceiling. And they were all "stat this" and "prep that" and "Oxy-line-three-quarter-flow-doohickey" and a bunch of other stuff.

And my doc kept saying, "Don't you worry, everything is gonna be fine" which actually made me worry pretty bad. I mean the sweat was popping out on my brow, no lie. When a doctor yells "Don't worry" as he's sorting through a table full of shiny medical tools, it's time to worry, right?

But it all went fine- They did a double-stint operation, took about 2.5 hours on the table, and I was awake the whole time. It's 4 days after my heart surgery, and I feel great.

f***ing SCIENCE for the win, baby. Thanks to my doc and his kickass surgical team at Evergreen Hospital in Kirkland. You guys ROCK!

The pic below shows what a lot of heart surgery is like today, where they go in through an artery. They tried going in through my arm but got stuck, so they went to Plan B and went in through the femoral artery in my groin (no, I'm not gonna show you that picture, lol).

My uncle had a blockage in "The Widowmaker" artery, one that comes in from the side of the heart, or something to that effect. They did an experimental surgery on him where they went in to both legs and used basically a microscopic dremel and shaved off the blockage, using suction on both sides of the artery (suction on the shaft side of the dremel and one right at the bottom of the heart to prevent any pieces from reaching the lungs or the brain.) Supposedly it was only the second such surgery at the time. It works, and eventually will eliminate stints and bypass, or so they say, but they have to get the world trained on it because it is very tedious work. Lot better than cracking chests though.